The Huffington Post put this point to directors Joe and Anthony Russo recently and asked them about the common criticism that Infinity War‘s climax loses something when you realize these heroes have to come back to life. The filmmakers gave an intriguing response, as they teased that the existence of those sequels doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be set after the events of Avengers 4.

Anthony suggested that there are several “inventive ways” in which the stories of these characters can be continued without undoing the ending of Infinity War, claiming that future installments might jump around the MCU timeline:

“Here’s the thing, I think it’s important to remember anything is possible in the MCU. Just because there’s a sequel on the books doesn’t mean … people become accustomed to time moving linearly in the MCU. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. There’s a lot of very inventive ways of where the story can go from here.”

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His brother Joe supported what he said as well by pointing out that there’s a long gap between the events of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Infinity War that Vol. 3could potentially exploit.

“There’s four years between ‘Guardians 2’ and ‘Infinity War.’ That’s a long time, and a lot of ‘Guardians’ stories to tell. Again, as Anthony said, don’t expect everything to move forward in a linear fashion in the Marvel universe.”

This is an interesting idea, though the Guardians suggestion may be flawed. James Gunn has previously suggested on Twitter that Vol. 3 will chronologically come after Avengers 4. Which means that Star-Lord and his pals must be returning to life somehow, otherwise the threequel would have to be solely about Rocket and Nebula.

That being said, it’s perfectly possible that Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 could take place prior to Avengers: Infinity War. The sequel could easily fill the gap in Peter Parker’s life by explaining what he got up to in between fighting Vulture and battling Thanos. Likewise, Black Panther 2 could, feasibly, not even feature T’Challa at all and instead move on to Shuri taking on the throne of Wakanda.

Tell us, how do you think things will go down in Avengers 4? Do you have any theories on who’ll survive and who won’t? Join the conversation in the comments section below.